when I bought some 23mm HEDs with 25mm tires, I felt like it was a revelation. Super smooth, great for descending.

Originally Posted by Ygduf

what part of wide rims don't you guys trust or like?

when I bought some 23mm HEDs with 25mm tires, I felt like it was a revelation. Super smooth, great for descending.

I don't mistrust or dislike wide rims, I simply didn't notice any perceptible improvement in confidence or grip when corning on the wider rims (Velocity A23s, which I rode on the race bike for a week, including racing a crit with them). The ride quality was actually worse, but that was unrelated to the rim width, probably was because of the much higher spoke count on the wide wheel build (32/32 vs 20/24) or other elements of the rim construction or wheelbuilds. That's with 23mm tires. I have not tried 25mm tires with wide rims on the road. The benefits with wider tires at low pressures, though, are extremely noticeable. It seems obvious to me that the advantages in ride and grip are still there with narrower tires at higher pressures, it's just that they are a lot smaller, to the point that I didn't feel like I needed to run out the next day and get a set of wide wheels for my road bike. I'm certain that I will eventually make the switch, I'm just saying that I had heard that the experience would be as revelatory as yours was, but that wasn't my experience. I didn't try them out as a wide rim skeptic, I wasn't looking to prove to myself that there was no advantage - I was actually quite surprised when I switched back to my regular wheels and realized that I didn't suddenly feel less secure, even racing the same crit course the next week.

I should add the disclaimer that I am a very light rider, I race at about 125 lbs and I run even 23mm tires at about 80f/85r most of the time. Even at pressures that low, I think I'm light enough that I'm not folding the tire much, so I don't detect any difference in cornering precision between wide and skinny rims. You've got, what, 60 lbs on me? At 150% of my weight, you're almost guaranteed to have a profoundly different experience than me. I did try to be specific to my own experience in my earlier comments, I didn't intend them as a recommendation to avoid wide rims.

EDIT: Forgot to add, I have a tube and a Lezyne Pressure Drive in my jersey pocket for every road race I do. This is important anywhere, but especially when I was racing out in Tennessee, if you flat in a RR, you're gonna be waaaaay out in the sticks.

I forget, did they ever regulate wheel depth for amateur racers? I know there was talk of it earlier this year.

For young Juniors it's been regulated. Not for regulars. I think even low spoke count wheels (under 16 spokes) are okay except in Nationals and UCI races, so a TriSpoke/HED3 is okay for example, or MadFiber, or an old Campy 12 spoke wheel, etc.

Originally Posted by grolby

The only explanation I can think of for the continued popularity of the Open Pro is Stockholm Syndrome. It's, what, 10 or 15 years old, now? When it first came out I guess it was pretty okay, but that's because it was one of the first "lightweight" double-wall rims out there.

When it came out I thought it was a terrible rim. It was more expensive than its competitors, it wasn't round, it wasn't straight, they machined the sidewalls to make it seem straight/round, it was heavy for its price, and it was not that strong. I would have much rather used a lighter rim that was just as fragile or a stronger rim that was same weight, usually with rims that didn't have super thick sidewalls designed so that the manufacturer could machine down the sidewalls to make the rim straight (instead of making them straight to begin with). A straight rim with a single thickness sidewall was a more efficient way of building a rim versus having a really thick sidewall you machine down, leaving you with really thick spots as well as some more desirable "to spec" spots.

I admit that having a rim supplier 10 minutes away from me was a great thing. I would drive over and pick and choose which rims I wanted to buy. I'd pick them from the middle of the box, do a super coarse check on trueness and the seam, then take the ones I wanted. I rejected a lot of rims. I even exchanged rims after a half-done build because I noticed something wrong with the rim. I no longer have this option.

Back in the day Mavic wasn't really producing a great product. Their "light" wheel, the Helium, used a rim so heavy that I couldn't believe they marketed it as a "light" wheel. The rim was probably 100g heavier than the light rims of the day, and similar in profile. Their Cosmic Carbone faired wheel was super flexible, not that strong, and could collect water so fast they ought have used it in desert communities when it rained. Their hubs were poorly designed (super narrow flanges so any wheel you built was guaranteed to be really flexible no matter what the spoke count or rim), they had heavy bars, they chased electric shifting, they had the coolest looking but most flexible crank (a lot of crashes on those cool cranks led to the spider actually bending, something you don't see normally on cranks), etc etc.

Their saving grace was their mountain bike rim line up - no one did it better than them for off road. The machined sidewalls worked for mountain bikes, no one made a competitive rim like they did, and even I used them when I built any "ultimate" mountain bike wheel set up.

That and they started marketing the first factory built wheels.

"...during the Lance years, being fit became the No. 1 thing. Totally the only thing. It’s a big part of what we do, but fitness is not the only thing. There’s skills, there’s tactics … there’s all kinds of stuff..." Tim Johnson

Thanks for that perspective CDR. Certainly for as long as I've been riding, I could never see why an OP was worth twice as much as, say, a Velocity Aerohead. Magic was good at taking people in by pointing out that their rims were welded and machined, I guess. But neither of those have much or anything to do with the quality of a rim. I built my own wheels with Aeroheads, and they got beat to hell because I did a poor build... Subsequent wheels I've had built with the A23, which is basically a wide Aerohead, have been rock solid. The OP rear wheel I had for a while started going bad early on, never stated true or straight and cracked around the eyelets within three years or so.

For your first season just get any decent set of wheels. Ex's suggestion is a good one tubeless or not because they are cheap. You need two sets of wheels if you race. As long as they are round and true that's all you need. Save your money for when you decide to commit to the sport and you are willing to upgrade the tools of the trade, which goes way beyond wheels.

Typically wired, but Pro+ wireless aren't a lot more. Check slowtwitch, beginnertriathlete, eBay, craigslist etc. You can get a new G3 wheelset for under $900 today, and Black Friday is upon us. 25% off is typical. That's how I bought my Quarq.

Typically wired, but Pro+ wireless aren't a lot more. Check slowtwitch, beginnertriathlete, eBay, craigslist etc. You can get a new G3 wheelset for under $900 today, and Black Friday is upon us. 25% off is typical. That's how I bought my Quarq.

I guess I'll have to look harder then. I've only been seeing deals for wired. I had been looking occasionally for them but searching primarily for campagnolo ones but it appears freehubs are in the $50 range, so I don't necessarily need to be limiting myself. G3's are the only ones that are ant+, right?

Punctuation is important. It's the difference between "I helped my uncle, Jack, off a horse" and "I helped my uncle Jack off a horse"

I guess I'll have to look harder then. I've only been seeing deals for wired. I had been looking occasionally for them but searching primarily for campagnolo ones but it appears freehubs are in the $50 range, so I don't necessarily need to be limiting myself. G3's are the only ones that are ant+, right?

I'm not certain of the model names, but I think the models with a '+' are Ant+. My Pro+ is, and I believe the Elite+, SL+, etc. are as well.

No. All G3's are ANT+ wireless. The older, large hub models, Elite+, Pro+, SL+, and SLC+ are all ANT+ wireless. Some of the older models can be converted to ANT+ wireless via a firmware upgrade or G3 guts replacement.